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tv   Charlie Rose  PBS  December 10, 2016 12:00am-1:01am PST

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>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin this evening with senator john mccain who will be the chair of the senate armed services committee responding to the obama administration's announcement of an investigation into whether russia tried to influence the american election. >> we don't have a policy. until the president of the united states sets a policy as to what you do and how you achieve it -- for example, right now, if we think there is an impending attack, there is no policy as to what to do. once there is an attack, there is no policy as to what we do in response. and, so, there is really a lack of coherence from the executive branch, and our job is to lay out the the scenario and enact
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legislation if necessary and i'm sure some legislation will be necessary. >> rose: on the same subject, we continue with david sanger and michael isikoff. l of this down on paper, give is it to congressional committees, perhaps make part of it public, before president-elect trump gets sworn in and is able to come in and say nothing happened here. >> rose: we continue with an update on the trump transition and begin with major garrett of cbs news. >> trump offered giuliani the position of attorney general and homeland security. giuliani turned him down. sources very close to the transition tell me, focusing entirely on secretary of state a position he wanted and coveted, but in the end trump would not give him. giuliani sensed that and pulled out before suffering the indignity of sometime next week someone else getting that slot. so in every way this important
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political figure who revolutionized new york city and who was the biggest if not the most conspicuous exponent of the trump approach to the presidency will be left on the sidelines. it's an amazing story. >> rose: and continue with phillip rucker of the "the washington post." >> mike pence is said to have been encouraging of the romney possibility, same with reince priebus. both have relationships with romney and fit in with the party establishment and other advisors in the circle especially kellyanne conway who have been hostile to the idea of romney and i think that's why tillerson emerged. >> rose: we conclude with nancy gibbs, editor of "time" magazine, on the selection of donald trump as the publication's "person of the year." >> what's remarkable about donald trump that we have not seen before is somebody who comes in and defies all expectation, breaks all the rules, shatters every norm and
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convention for how you run for president. >> rose: john mccain, michael isikoff, david sanger, major garrett, phillip rucker and nancy gibbs, when we continue. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by the following: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we begin this evening with cybersecurity and the obama administration. the president ordered a full review of russia's election related hacking. lis manaco told investigator
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about the investigation on friday morning. she said the report will be delivered before president leaves office january 20th. john mccain said cybersecurity issues would be a central focus to have the senate armed services committee which he will chair. senator john mccain, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: why are you making that announcement today? >> well, obviously, one of the issues, the situations that has brought this situation to a boil is the allegations of russia interfering not only in our elections but other elections around the world. that undermines the fundamentals of democracy if they're able to succeed. but more importantly, charlie, testimony before the committee by our military and civilian leaders in defense all stated cyber is one of the areas where we do not have an advantage over our potential adversaries.
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not only do not have an advantage, in some instances, they have an advantage. these hearings will be focused on the overall issue of cybersecurity and their ability or inability to affect outcomes in elections in democratic countries would certainly be one of the issues but only one. >> rose: you are saying you will have your own investigation at the senate armed services committee. >> yes, because my understanding, among other things, is it's simply on whether they're hacking into the past election. by the way, the chinese hacked into my election in 1980. but this has got to be a broad and encompassing -- we've already had hearings in the senate armed services committee on this issue. we asked all our military witnesses. now we've got to focus on the encompassing aspects of a challenge, whether it be their ability to shut down our satellites or steal or most important secrets such as our
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new weapons systems, or whether it is to be able to listen in on communications, or whether to be able to disrupt and destroy communications. there are some scenarios, my friend, and i'm only emphasizing scenarios where they could shut down every satellite in space. so this is a huge challenge and, frankly, this administration has no policy as to how to prevent it, what to do in case of attack and how to prepare for one. >> rose: do you have any doubt that the runnings tried to interfere in the u.s. elections? >> i don't know if it was an intentional interference, but i do know that the -- some of the leaks that came out cannot be helpful to the political process. now, i'll leave it to others, and i don't have sufficient information to make a judgment about the past election, but i can make a judgment that, if they are able to disrupt communications and to pervert
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communications to the degree where the people who are making a determination as to how to vote is distorted or disrupted or destroyed, then, obviously, it's a big challenge to democracy, whether it be in the united states or anyplace else. >> rose: do you believe that you have a different point of view than president-elect trump on this who has tended to downplay the idea that it might have been the russians? >> every expert that i've talked to says it was the russians, and that's unclassified, but everyone i've talked to said the russians played a very major role. but not just in elections, charlie. they are every day bombarding some of our industrial bases, particularly the military industrial complex. they are become barring our communications systems. i mean, it's just a fact is what they're doing. and they're the best at it, the chinese are next, and then you have the everyday hacker, who is -- that is also a significant challenge. >> rose: but we also have
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cybersecurity and cyberespionage capabilities. i assume we're using them as well. >> i'm sure we are to some degree, but we don't have a policy. until a president of the united states sets a policy as to what you do and how you achieve it -- for example, if right now we think there is an impending attack, there is no policy as to what to do. once there is an attack, there is no policy as to what we do in response. and, so, there is a lack of coherence from the executive branch, and our job is to lay out the scenario and enact legislation, if necessary -- and i'm sure some legislation will be necessary. >> rose: but you are saying admiral mike rogers does not have a policy to respond to cybersecurity invasions? >> mike rogers has testified before the senate armed services committee that there is no policy. >> rose: and coming out of the
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armed services committee and your oversight capabilities and monitoring the committee will be a recommendation for legislation? >> not just a recommendation, we will inability legislation from the senate armed services committee, and i have received encouragement to address this situation by our republican leadership. >> rose: have you had any conversations with president-elect trump about this? >> no, i have not. >> rose: should you? i'd welcome a conversation on this and any other issue. >> rose: but you know very well to be nominated for secretary of defense. >> i know him very well and i have known, jr. mattis for 12, 15 years. >> rose: your colleague and mutual friend lindsey graham and admirer said i'm going after russia in every way you can, i think they're one of the most destabilizing influenceons the
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world stage, i think they influenced our elections and i want president putin to pay the price. >> my friend lindsey graham is always shy and retired and reticent -- ( laughter ) >> rose: no, he's not. but i think we need to have that as part of our overall obsessing of th -- assessing ofe situation, and not only what the situation is but what we need to do to counterthis in national security. according to most i've talked to the russians are the leading offenders. but the chinese, too. some say the latest chinese aircraft have alarmingly features of the f-35. so there is no doubt a great deal of industrial espionage is taking place, not just by the russians as well. so we need to develop an overall policy that not only applies to the russians but to every other nation and every other
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individual ethat might seek to harm this nation. >> rose: even though they don't have a policy, you have underlined the fact you do not believe the administration has a policy. lis manaco who is in charge of this inside the white house said singled out internet-related dangers as some of the most significant national security issues facing the new administration. >> someone should ask lis manaco what is our policy if we detect an attack is coming to the united states, what is our response if there is an attack, and look at the whole scenario of how the united states of america responds to this threat. there is none. >> rose: but why wouldn't you, as chairman of the senate armed services committee, request a meeting with the president-elect to talk about this? >> i promise you, the best way to have that dialogue is to declare that there will be hearings and policymaking and
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legislation coming out of the senate armed services committee. i promise you, that will prompt a dialogue. and it's going to take some time, charlie. this is not something we'll be able to do overnight. >> rose: do you believe you have to turn the president-elect's understanding around on this because, i mean, th the election.ns interfered" it could be russia, it could be china and it could be some guy in his home in new jersey. i believe it could have been russia and it could have been anyone of many other people, sources or even individuals. that's what the president-elect said to "time" magazine. >> well, in some respects, he's right. all of these are players that he mentioned. the problem is that he may not quite understand that the best at it and the most hostile and the ones who have probably had the most significant impact over a number of years are the russians. they're the best at their job. admiral rogers has basically
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said the same thing. all these experts have said our director of national intelligence has said it that it's the russians who are, by far, the most active in this kind of behavior, but it's not confined to russia. >> rose: senator mccain, i look forward to talking more about this. thanks for joining us on this friday afternoon. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: see you soon. >> rose: we continue with michael isikoff of yahoo news and david sanger, journalist, both from washington. david sanger, why did the president take this action today and order this investigation? >> well, charlie, i think there is a substantive reason and from everything we can tell the political reason. the substantive reason is it has taken the intelligence community an extraordinarily long period of time to come to all the major conclusions they've come to on the russian effort to influence
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the election, everything from the hacking of the d.n.c. -- the democratic national committee -- and the release of those e-mails to the scanning of registration data. looks like in the end they tid not try to affect the actual voting process and machines. then all of the other surroundings of this because obviously the russians have been hacking into many american institutions for years, and i think the serious question about why the united states was caught by such surprise here. and, so, i think substantively, he wanted to force the intelligence community to come up with some lessons learned for future elections. but i think the political reason, charlie, is even more fascinating because president-elect trump has been denying, first, that there was much effort to influence the elek at all and, secondly, said he had no evidence it's the russians, while there is this flood of intelligence reports
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floating around the city suggesting that it was the russians, and who within russia did it. so i think what the president is trying to do is force the intelligence community to put all of this down on paper, give it to congressional committees, perhaps make part of it public, before president-elect trump gets sworn in and is able to come in and say nothing happened here. >> rose: michael, what would you add to that? >> yeah, i think david has it exactly right, if nothing else. this sort of boxes in president-elect trump because to have -- and i should point out that even today the administration ratcheted up what it has said about the russian role. eric schultz and briefing reporters at the white house press briefing said that it was high confidence that the intelligence community had that those cyberattacks on the d.n.c. and other political
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thatizations and political it was confident -- high confidence is a term of art. it's saying here it is, we're going to compile all this evidence and present it to you, the new administration, and this is coming the same week that trump said in that "time magazine" interview, he doesn't know if it was the russians, maybe it was some guy in his house in new jersey. >> rose: here's the interesting point to me about this and i want both of you to comment, number one, mike pence has been bet ging, i guess, the intelligence briefings. number two, the president-elect has been talking to the president with some frequency, if we understand what he is saying that he's consulted with the president about the transition and a range of other
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things. he's said he likes the president and the president likes him. you would have thought it would have come up in those conversations and this president of the united states would remind him what this administration believes about the russians hacking. >> you would think. and schultz was pressed on that at the white house press briefing today and said he's not going to give a readout on the conversations between the president and the president-elect, but it's hard to separate out those comments that trump made sort of dismissing the whole -- what the intelligence community is saying from the president's decision to make public this review today and even, as i said before, ratchet up the level of confidence they have that they are right about this.
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>> rose: david, what would you say to that? >> well, i think what adds to the oddity here, charlie, is that, in addition to whatever briefings they have given to vice president elect pence and whatever briefings president-elect trump has taken, you've seen a raft of more traditional republicans step out and say we need to hold hearings, we need independent commissions, we need to have more of these details come out in public. john mccain said the other day that he would hold hearings through the armed services committee, not only of the hacks related to the election but perhaps because it's the senate armed services committee, the efforts of russian intelligence to get inside u.s. military operations. we know, of course, that the hacking that took place at the d.n.c. and elsewhere was not the first effort by the russians in recent times. there were hacks on the state
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department, the white house, the pentagon. so this fits into a broader context, and my guess is that conversation has taken place between president obama and president-elect trump, it's been iin the context of there is a bigger russian campaign out here and you ignore it at your peril. >> rose: my impression is the investigatatory effort is being spearheaded by the f.b.i., am i correct? >> that's right for the immediate d.n.c., john podesta and so forth but also other members of the intelligence committee have been brought in. >> rose: mike, you were going to say? >> yeah, the f.b.i. took the lead on this throughout, but compass the entireing to should point out that probably the strongest public statement has come from admiral mike
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rogers at the national security agency, who, although he didn't say russia, made it all but clear -- made it clear that he was referring to a nation state that tried to influence our election, and he said even -- something even further, intending to affect that election, and that is probably the biggest open question here. if, indeed, it was the russians, what were they up to? what was their motive? was it simply to destabilize and create confusion in the american politic as they have done in many other country, or was this a concerted effort to influence the results of the election, to help elect donald trump and defeat hillary clinton? and that is probably the biggest
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mystery about this we don't know the answer to. >> rose: my question is there any doubt this would be taking d the various intelligencento actsies believe it is that it would be carried out without putin's knowledge? >> everybody i've run into, and i don't know if michael has a different view of this, everybody i have run into who is at senior levels of u.s. intelligence say it is inconceivable to them that somebody would take the risk of doing something this high profile that could draw a major response from the united states without clearing it first with the boss. >> yeah, and it is also true that, you know, the russian intentions and goals here may have changed over time, that perhaps there was some initial, or when this began, it may have been an effort to help trump, it may have been an effort -- there is certainly indications that a putin and his top aid aides wert
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enthralled with hillary clinton. at some point, though, they may have read the polls the way everybody else did and assumed that hillary clinton was going to win, and they may have scaled back some of their activity, although that's not entirely clear, either. we know that they were in the d.n.c., they were hacking these e-mails at least through the summer of 2016. it's still not clear how long it went on. there are some indications it may have continued for a little bit of time after that, and that's key. you know, did they -- and also i should point out that there was a lot of concern over the summer and fall about those probes of state election systems which made people -- that really rang alarm bells suggesting they may have been trying to hack the election itself, and i think the administration has made clear that that didn't happen. >> rose: a couple of final questions.
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as soon as we had some evidence that the hacking had taken place and the f.b.i. jumped on this, my understanding is that the president of the united states, president obama, said there would be a proportionate response, that the intelligence agency had immediately dug into this from the f.b.i. and the c.i.a. and the defense and other people, and that there was going to be a proportionate response. has there been a response as far as we know? >> well, the main response we've seen so far, charlie, has been some warnings to the russians that president obama gave directly when he last met president putin in china, that was back in september. there have been some channels of communication elsewhere through the secretary of defense, secretary of state, of wanting a system for cyber and nuclear warning. but if there has been a punishment to a cost to president putin for this, we haven't seen it.
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there haven't been sanctions. maybe there is been some kind of covert effort, but, if so, it's been pretty subtle. it was joe biden who said on one of the sunday shows before the election, you know, putin -- we'll come after putin and he'll know it even if nobody else does. but, so far, their evidence of that is pretty scarce. >> if i could point out, this became public today because lis manaco, president's homeland advisor, talked about the cyber threat and said, when there are cyber attacks that threaten american interests, we'll act to protect our interests as well as impose costs. i then asked erlater in that breakfast session if the u.s. government has taken or will be taking steps to impose costs on
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the russians as a result of these cyberattacks and she didn't answer that question. >> rose: somebody once said to me in an intelligence committee after the russians were accused of doing thi that the the proportionate response would be something so that putin would know what it was about but look with credibility within russia so that it would not be done with a lot of bells and soundings. >> that's right, charlie, but there is a risk to that as well, and there is always a temptation let's keep it quiet and in the family and everybody will get their signaling, be uh one of the biggest problems in cyber as we've discussed on past shows is establishing some sense of deterrence. it does not exist in the cyber realm the way it does in nuclear. and if you're going to establish deterrence, you have to have a pretty public response so that if the next time it's not the russians but instead the
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north koreans or the iranians or the chinese or someone else we're not thinking of, they understand this isn't a free fire zone. >> rose: david, thank you so much. michael, thank you. >> thank you. >> rose: back in a moment. stay with us. >> rose: we now turn to the latest news from the trump transition. we're joined by major garrett of cbs news who has been covering not only the trump campaign but also the trump transition. major, rudy giuliani says late november he withdrew his name for consideration. give us a sense of what's going on there. >> rudy giuliani is an open racquet character -- an o operatic character in the trump transition. he became trump's post aggressive and deeply loved -- because i saw this so many times on the campaign trail -- surrogate for donald trump, and he's the odd man out,
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spectacularly the odd man out in the trump transition. it is almost inconceivable to some within the trump transition that rudy giuliani would not find a place within the trump cabinet. that's partly related to trump's own instinct but also giuliani's missteps. trump offered giuliani the position of attorney general and homeland security, giuliani turned him down. sources close to the transition tell me. focusing entirely on secretary of state, a position he wanted and coveted, but in the end trump would not give him. giuliani sensed that, pulled himself out before suffering the indignity sometime next week of someone else getting that slot. so, in every way, this deeply important american political figure who revolutionized new york city and who was the biggest if not most conspicuous exponent of the trump approach
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to the presidency will be left on the sidelines. it's an amazing story. >> rose: so who is left in the running of secretary? >> i am told by those closest to the process, there are only two really legitimate figures who may get the position of secretary, mitt romney and the c.e.o., president and chairman of the board of exxonmobil rex tillerson. >> rose: tillerson brings what? >> tillerson brings for trump a couple of things that you may not associate with the position of secretary of state. he has no government experience, he's not a trained foreign service diplomat by any stretch to have the imagination, but he's a corporate chieftainen who has done deals and because exxonmobil operates in more than 50 countries, it explores for oil and natural gas in six of the seven continents on the earth, he has, if you will, a corporate world view. he has experience with lots of different governments and
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possibly most important, charlie, he has long experience in russia and with vladimir putin. they knew each other way back when in the 1990s when putin was kgb functionary in the government of boris yeltsin. and the governor of iowa got to know xi jinping the current head of the china when he was a functionary in the chinese bureaucracy, if you looked at that as a template, you might see rex tillerson as someone particularly amenable to pleblght trump's world view. >> rose: it's clear, though, the president has whatever differences with mitt romney, whatever was said about both men in the campaign that they worked their way through that and this is now a positive conversation about the difficult process of selecting a secretary of state, on the one hand a man who has to
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make the decision for the benefit of the country, on the other hand a man who has his own integrity and does not -- and is prepared to go to work for a man that he was deeply critical of during the campaign. >> wherever this lands, if mitt romney becomes or does not become secretary of state, what he leaves the process with is a different appreciation of donald trump, and, importantly, to mitt romney, a different appreciation of donald trump of mitt romney. just as donald trump has a different appreciation now of the current president, barack obama. charlie, i attended more than 70 trump rallies. there was not one scintilla of appreciation of barack obama the president, the man or american figure in history. donald trump now has all three of those things, a deep appreciation of barack obama the president, the man and as a figure in american history. so there is the potential of evolution with lect trump.
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he -- with president-elect trump. he's evolved with mitt romney. these are serious conversations. mitt romney is in the final two of an exhausting, ever expanding list of potential secretaries of state, and if he lands it, it will be among one of the most fascinating stories of the trump transition. >> rose: so much was said about temperament and being fit for the presidency, yet, with respect to romney, with respect to obama, the president-elect is reflecting a very adult behavior. >> it's an adult behavior but it's also a behavior i would, if cautiously, charlie, suggests to you is also one in awe. and perhaps that's appropriate. the presidency -- i've covered three american presidents, i've read a good deal about those who came before the three i was privileged enough to cover. it is an enormously important institution. it is, in its own sense, an awe-inspiring institution, and i think one of the things that is important for the american body
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of mind, the american culture to appreciate about donald trump is that, at some levels, he is awed by the institution and by those who have pursued it and those who have achieved it. mitt romney and president obama fall into both categories, and in ways perhaps surprising to himself, donald trump has come to appreciate that. >> rose: he really is in everything we know about him a man who admires success and feeds on winning. let's talk about the idea of how h he does it. this idea of a man who far more than barack obama, far more than george w. bush, has thrown himself into this process, has interviewed people, is on the phone constantly, whereas the impression i have is that the selection by other presidents was much more a product of a transition team and much more a product of clearly involvement by the president-elect, but much more the involvement of a team,
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whereas this president wants to touch and talk to and get a personal sense of the men and women he wants to serve. >> exactly. and i think it's far, far too early, charlie, to offer an appraisal of this approach that is either positive or negative. i think the country and those of us obligated to cover this process as it unfolds before us need to take it step by step and judge it as the results speak for themselves. remember, jimmy carter was a president who was deeply involved in the day-to-day and hour-by-hour details of his presidency and it bogged him down. it separated himself from the larger vision. so there is a danger involved in that kind of involvement and, yet, we tend to appreciate someone who has an appreciation for details, an appreciation for evaluating someone at the personal gut level. if i've learned anything about
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president-elect trump in my 18 or so months covering him is that he makes very important and crucial snap judgments about people by appraising them himself and not getting it filtered by those around him. that's an important characteristic of an emerging trump presidency. but i'm not going to give you an evaluation, charlie, whether that will be successful or not successful. it just is a reality. >> rose: major garrett, thank you so much for joining us. it's a pleasure. >> charlie, thank you. >> rose: we'll be back with phillip rucker of "the washington post." >> stay with us. >> rose: more on this weekend about the transition of president-elect donald trump by phillip rucker of "the washington post." i heard before at giuliani was out of the running. is this simply today's announcement to make that clear that this possible nominee withdrew himself because of his enormous contribution to the trump campaign? >> i think that's right. i think president-elect
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temperature was giving giuliani a big favor with this announcement. he not only made the official word that giuliani was withdrawing himself from any administration job, but reince priebus stated in a quote on this adjournment that rudy giuliani was vetted thoroughly by the trump team and passed with flying colors. so it clears rudy giuliani of any rumors whether he might have been passed over for secretary of state. but, charlie, i think your reporting matches with my reporting over the last few weeks which is rudy giuliani was really fading in the view of donald trump. >> rose: do we know whether he could have been attorney general if he had not ruled that out and insisted on being secretary of state? >> that's a great question. i don't know for sure. i think if he had been open to attorney general, certainly there would have been some discussion about whether jeff sessions should get it or rudy giuliani. so, you know, potentially he could have gotten himself a job there. i think trump imagined giuliani as a better fit for attorney
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general or department of homeland security. but giuliani was insistent from beginning state was all he wanted. >> rose: and he could have held sessions for supreme court appointment which would have been entirely within the kind of thing he might want because of his life within, you know, the judicial process both in terms of law enforcement, also in terms of judging. let me turn to the secretary of state. what do ewe know? >> well, we know that there are two people considered leading candidates now, mitt romney who has been a candidate for some time, and a new figure rex tillerson, c.e.o. of exxonmobil, an international business executive, a real corporate leader who's done a lot of work around the world because of his role in the oil industry, and including with russia, he has relationships with the putin government and has been around the world. he would be a very different kind of secretary of state than
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someone mit like mitt romney who might be a more traditional figure in that political post. both are well-liked by donald trump. there are political considerations, of course. trump supporters, a lot of them are pretty hostile to the idea of mitt romney, of rewarding a former antagonist who was not loyal on the campaign, and tillerson, more unknown. i don't know what that confirmationo process would look like. joint in john mccain and lindsey graham would scrutinize his ties and relationships with russia, for example. >> rose: take us inside the trump transition team. whose on what side, how are they lining up and what are the conflicts between different groups? >> well, there are different perspectives on secretary of state. this has been going on really about a month, this discussion about who the diplomats should be. mike pence is said to be encourage being the romney possibility, same the reince priebus. both with relationships with romney, they fit in more with
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the party establishment, and there are other advisors inside the circle especially kellyanne conway who have been very hostile to the idea of romney and i think that's why tillerson has emerged. he is somebody who matches some of the qualities trump likes in romney. romney has a certain stature and gravidas and can travel the world with the authority of a president. and tillerson is seen as someone who carries himself in a similar way, and i think when he came to meet with trump this week at trump tower, he was very impressive. they had a very good conversation. that the what people are saying who know, and, so, those are the qualities trump is looking for in a diplomat. it's really, at this point, a political calculation of whether he goes with romney, a party insider, at the risk of alienating loyal base and advisors, or going with somebody new like tillerson. >> rose: is there much pushback to the president-elect because he's seeing al gore and
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constantly praises the president? >> you know, not within the transition team that i've heard of, and i think a lot of his voters are trying to give him the benefit of the doubt here. you know, it's one thing to have a meeting with al gore because your daughter tried to set up a meeting and you listen to what the guy had to say. it's a totally another thing to change your views on theçó policies and trump is as far right on the climate and environmental issues as he can be. he appointed pruitt the attorney general from oklahoma to be head of the e.p.a. that's a far right pick. whatever trump told gore -- gore told trump in the meeting, he's not really heeding that council. >> rose: what might we learn about how president-elect trump will governorern based on how he is running the transition? >> he's very hands-on, as you guys were talking about in the earlier segment. he is interviewing all these people personally. he's weighing in on them personally. he's making assessments about whether they would be a good fit
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if his cabinet, whether they have the leadership strength he's looking for. he's been really drawn to alphas, to leaders, to people either c.e.o.s in the corporate world or military generals. he's not looking at academics and policy minds and folks who have spent years reading books about things. he wants people in the real world commanding employees or troops and making decisions that have impact on markets, people's lives and global affairs. so that's the approach he's taken to governing. the big mark is what the policies will look like. we know a lot about the composition of the leadership of the administration. we know very little about what kind of policies they actually will move forward with after the inauguration. there is a policy team in washington developing an agenda for the first hundred days, but those details have not been fully released publicly. >> rose: but the president has talked about some of his primary priorities in terms of -- >> of course. >> rose: -- in terms of
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immigration, in terms of trade, in terms of tax reform. >> of course. we just don't know the specific details of that, sort of what the time line will be like, which things he's going to do first, second, third, fourth, so forth, and what some of the deals with congress might look like. there are a lot of roles to fill here. >> rose: what role is steve bannon playing? >> a very influential role. he's with the president-elect almost every day, weighing in on a lot of these appointments. my understanding is that he's making his views heard on some of these big jobs, certainly secretary of state and some of the others. you know, they're not quite as involved at this point in the smaller jobs and sort of who's filling in, the deputy, under secretary, assistant secretaries at the agencies, they've also not yet announced senior white house staff positions beyond reince priebus and steve bannon and the white house counsel. so there is going to be some give and pull between bannon and
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priebus and others on the team about who fills in the job. who is the white house press secretary. who will be the deputy chief of staff? who will be the liaison with congress? who will be in vice president elect pence's office? the other job is the national committee chairmanship that priebus is vacating. it's the political arm to have the white house, the arm of the trump reelection campaign. the lead contender seem to be mcdaniel, currently the chairwoman of the michigan republican party, of course a very important state for donald trump and his electoral victory, but he's not yet made a final decision as far as i know. >> rose: is it an accurate statement of what seems to be the impression that while donald trump is urged not to tweet as much as he does, it's irresistible for him? >> i think so. it's a great question.
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he's indicated certainly that he's going to continue making his views known on twitter. he's been doing it almost every day since he has been president-elect and plans to continue into the white house. there have been some suggestion by some of his aides perhaps he would back off of twitter and someone mentioned maybe secret service would have something to say about that. tweet, he will.he is able to he wants to communicate directly with the american people. that's what we have been seeing throughout the campaign and through the transition, and he wants to do to break through what he sees is a press filter and speak directly to people. so that's twitter, rallies, doing call-ins on radio and videos on youtube and so forth. >> rose: thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> rose: we'll be right back. stay with us. >> rose: as it has annually and since 1927, "time" magazine announced its "person of the year" this week. this time it's the individual
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who, for better or worse, had the most influence on the events of the year. president-elect donald trump might be the obvious choice, but the nation remains divided over why, with ms. nancy gibbs, managing editor of "time," i am pleased to have her back at this table. you have always framed h as the person with the most influence. >> yes. >> rose: it is not the most popular. ths not anything other than the most influence. this is a slam dunk, isn't it? >> it is, though who has had the most influence on the year for better or worse. seems like the most universals agreement heed the most influence and disagreement over for bert or worse. this is one of the things we looked at is every presidential election, we named barack obama four years ago and eight years ago, we named george w. bush 12 years ago and 16 years ago. in presidential election years, it would be a little unusual for someone other than the
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newly-elected president to have been the dominant figure that year. in any presidential year, the country is divided. roughly half the country votes for one and then the other. there is something that feels different this year, at least from where i sit, of the level of surprise at the outcome which just speaks to how many people who were meant to be, you know, the experts and the data analysts and the pollsters didn't see his victory coming. and the reaction since then that even when you think about bush and gore in 2000 with the extraordinary five-week-long drama, even that one didn't feel as dramatic and fraught as this one. that's a lot of the challenge the president-elect faces. he talks about wanting to bring the country together. i think he acknowledges that represents a pretty significant challenge. >> rose: he certainly was pleased by the decision. >> he was. and it's complicated for us he talks about it as an honor.
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we have run into that for years, but sounds like the kinds of things people honor people with at the end of the year, and we've always said, look, this is a measure of influence. last year, we picked angela merkel who, on the one hand, the position she took particularly on the refugee crisis but also on the eurozone and the economic policy in europe made her a pretty divisive figure as well. she was by no means universally admired. >> rose: and she suffered it politically even though he's up for reelection. the new president of france. some change going on in italy. the netherlands has an election. we just saw an election in austria. if i thought of any other thing other than trump, and trump would seem to me to be obvious this particular year, but it is, you have framed the question, would be populism as an idea. >> and, you know, we have a
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story about the rise of the populists around the world, and, you know, nigel farage and the philippines and others. one of the reasons we weren't tempted to do a group, which i never like the to do if i can avoid it, is what's remarkable about trump is that we have not seen before is somebody who comes in and defies all expectations, breaks all the rules, shatters every sort of norm and convention for how you run for president, defeated not one but both major political parties on his way to winning, and -- >> rose: and defeated two dynasties. >> the two reigning dynasties and did it largely based on his own instinct, not a huge cadre of political advisors and pollsters, not with the help of the republican party, infrastructure or the donor class. the enormous army of people who
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are usually around a winning presidential candidate and taking some responsibility for the victory, there is nothing like this in donald trump's case. he has, you know, the small cadre of advisors and his kids and it's him. >> rose: is this a transformative election in terms of the way people win the presidency? >> i think there are a million fascinating questions for journalists coming out of this, you know, one of which will be do we see other politicians trying to copy his model and can they? it's possible that he was unique in the ability to accomplish what he did. i think there are many things about the 2016 race that was unprecedented. we had two candidates that went into it with probably 100% name recognition. it's easy to see donald trump had been a familiar figure in people's living rooms from his television career, quite apart from his life as real estate baron and casino owner.
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>> rose: and self-promotion. self-promotion, central to his brand. people felt they knew him. they liked him, hated him, they felt they knew what he was about from the beginning. that's hard for someone else to replicate, i think. >> rose: i think also, and i've thought more about this than before the election -- and he may have understood this -- in terms of the winning of the presidency, the disruptiveness of the way he ran his campaign, the way -- the language he used, the attacks on other people was for his sense that it made him be perceived by his people who were enthusiastic about him as a leader and be as a strong leader, that that was part of how he viewed the disruption, that it was necessary to overcome the challenge he had to achieve. >> you know, the subtext of it, whatever outrageous or controversial thing he was saying, the subtext is this was
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someone who was willing to say controversial things. so, you know, enon election day, even as he ended up winning the electoral college vote, certainly six out of ten voters don't think he has the judgment and the temperament to be president. and -- >> rose: only 40% of the people do. >> and yet, that was not -- and, so, people for whom judgment and temperament were the most important issue, hillary clinton won by miles, but by a factor of two to one, more people cared most about who could bring change to washington, and he won that group by 68 points, and that desire for change and the belief that he was more likely to bring it -- i mean, you know, the irony there, to that extent, was that hillary clinton punished for the very experience and long track record that she brought. >> rose: your instinct would be she was, she was punished by the fact that he was able to grab the change mantel.
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>> and everyone knew this was meant to be a change election. americans typically don't grant third terms. but, you know, again, i think that the fact that he -- one of the reasons, you know, the political experts all along were inclined to think this can't possibly succeed is he kept on doing things that no one had done before, or to the extent they had done anything like that had proven fatal to their candidacy. >> rose: watching the other day to people looking back, it is the capacity to stand in front of a huge audience and have a conversation with them is, to me, one of his -- the qualities that made his rallies different. it wasn't a speech. if it was a speech, it was simply a recouragetation of what he had been saying before, but much more of it was reacting, impressions, talking about -- he almost was having a conversation with them about what he'd read in the paper, about what he'd seen on television, and what do you think of this and did you agree with me, it was much more of that kind of dialogue.
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>> that's why, on the occasions when he was back on the teleprompter, it felt so odd because that was not the vernacular of his campaign. >> rose: and the spontaneity. you've interviewed him before, you interviewed him the last time with the eagle and all that. then you go back again a week ago. house of he? was he different in any way and percentively? >> you know -- i did see a difference. the main one being -- you know, i'm very interested in the relationship between presidents because of what that job does to you, and the night before we spoke to him, he had been on the phone for 45 minutes with president obama again, talking to him about ideas for his cabinet choices, and other topics that were on his mind, and he spoke with extraordinary warmth and respect.
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he talked about the chemistry he felt between them. he thought about how he expected the day he went to the white house and the two men sat down together, which is 48 hours after election day, he said, you know, everyone thought that would be an awkward moment. it didn't feel awkward at all. we sat down, started talking and talked for a long time. i found him very gracious and helpful and, you know, we've talked since then, and, you know, in listening to him talk particularly about his conversations with president obama, you start to see a glimpse that he is having to get his head around what has just happened and, you know, i've always wondered, you know, did he expect -- of course, he'll say, we always knew we were going to win. >> rose: i read somewhere earlier in the evening, they didn't think they were going to win. it was only after the 8:00 thing when they began to see what the possibilities were in ctory might be possible.dn and
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>> so then you win and you wake up, you know, is it like the dog that catches the car, where, you know, now i actually am going to have to be president, and what is that going to mean and how is that going to work. i think the conversations that he's having with everyone who he's bringing in mean this is the next season of the reality show that he has been staging. >> rose: it's interesting some of the people he's talking to, not only mitt romney and all the other things he said about him but al gore shows up. >> it's peculiar, you just wonder how is it between business leaders and military leaders and politicians and private sector activists, you know, this part of his own personal transition, yes, there is the administrative institutional transition, there is a personal transition, too. so that's what i was struck by talking to him this time was that he's very much in the throws of that process.
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>> rose: thank you for coming. thank you for having me. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time. >> rose: for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org
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>> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. >> you're watching pbs.
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♪> you're watching pbs. this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. record week. stocks have their best week since the election. will it usher in the return of the retail investor. >> shakeup. the ceo of coke steps down. now the new ceo must figure out how to tackle a number of major challenges. picking stocks. our market monitor says there are three companies whose shares could rise double digits for the year. he'll name them tonight on "nightly business report" for friday, december 9th. good evening, everyone. and welcome. the rally rolls on. not only did stocks close at all-time highs today, but the three major indexes advanced every single day this week. something that hasn't happened in five years.